Contra Brookes: There Can Be No Libertarian Case for Immigration Restrictions

Rebutting my Hoppean beliefs of days past

Recently my friend Peter Brookes – who authors The Persistent Ruminator – has written a rebuttal to my libertarian argument for open borders, arguing there actually can be a libertarian case for closed borders. I was immediately struck by Brookes’s argument being almost identical to Hans Hermann Hoppe’s (though Brookes came up with the same ideas without knowing about him). I must confess, I used to believe pretty much what Brookes outlines, and, Hoppe argues at length for elsewhere, from my early UKIP days until 2022, so, I welcome the opportunity to say why I was wrong then.  

Essentially, Brookes argues that insofar as Britain’s national infrastructure is the result of thievery, absent it being returned to its rightful owners, the state ought to manage it as its real owners, i.e., taxpayers, would want it managed. This is a plausible idea as it ensures lesser damages to the victims of theft (smashing a stolen vase is worse than just keeping it in your living room). Combined with the obvious fact most Britons want closed borders, all else equal, a libertarian commitment to reducing the damages of theft dictates closed borders. According to Hoppe, not having closed borders amounts to ‘forced integration’.

The chief problem with Brookes’s argument is the existence of rights of way. Rights of way are something almost all libertarians from Murray Rothbard and Walter Block through to Billy Christmas and Robert Nozick believe in. Admittedly, how these are established and their exact extent is up for debate, however, no libertarian believing in today’s footpaths or public roads, for example, can believe only those who originally walked on the path or made the road are entitled to do so because this would end a great many footpaths and roads thought to be legitimate by them. These rights of way are open to everyone; future generations and all. Hence, foreigners have a right of way into the country too which is to deny the justice of closed borders.

Should Brookes’s argument be accepted then it would be morally permissible for a majority of taxpayers to exclude children from ever laying foot on a road, street or public park. Children, after all, have not paid into the state, and, thus, have no claim on using the infrastructure taxpayers have financed. No libertarian warranting that name can accept this (lockdowns would have been permissible under this moral reasoning too). Indeed, it is this point about children (of net cost taxpayers) which persuaded a very good friend of mine to reject Hoppe’s argument for closed borders. Unfortunately, he wanted to keep closed borders so he simply rejected libertarianism as well. Shame.

Now, if we accept only domestic residents have rights of ways which they have inherited from their forefathers, which, I imagine is Hoppe’s position given this gets him free movement of nationals within a country but no free movement with foreigners, why can’t nationals alienate this right to the world. Why couldn’t I, who has the right to traverse the whole of the country as many times as I like, make an open invitation to everyone across the globe to come to Britain. And if I implausibly only have a right to so many steps across Britain, couldn’t I just gift or sell these to foreigners.

Let’s accept Brookes’s argument is right however (assume no rights of way). Does it get him to justifying national border controls? No. Brookes writes: ‘[T]he state is operating as a steward for the property owned in part by the vast majority of the public across the whole territory’. Brookes shouldn’t be talking about ‘the state’ here for a proper analysis of the problem though. Although it might simply have been a slip of the pen, roads, bridges and pavements are not ‘the cumulative work of the people of a country.’ Rather they are instead the work of specific county and city council employees using specific funds from specific council taxpayers. And it is these specific council taxpayers, not ‘the people of the country’ who have the right to determine what happens to their local infrastructure.

So should Brighton and Hove City Council have a vote and the Greens win it on a ticket of open borders then Brookes’s argument would support open borders with Brighton and the world, which, to my mind, significantly concedes the debate to open borders libertarians. Plus, it reintroduces the prospect of internal migration controls as most of Sussex would not want to accept immigrants via Brighton. Nay, should it be accepted councils (which lay the roads and maintain the streets) can control who goes on them internal migration controls in Britain would be entirely acceptable.

If people want closed borders, they will need to adopt a thicker theory of justice which includes promoting a certain conception of the good life; an ethic no libertarian can accept.